Saturday, May 28, 2011

Coburn's jihad against NSF after fail on planned parenthood

Republicans failed in their fact-free religious crusade to "defund planned parenthood", but now religious looneys are at it again, this time attempting to nitpick and ignorantly mock the National Science Foundation in what looks like a preliminary effort to cut funding for research and development. Fundamentalist christian Tom Coburn, who unfortunately also holds a public office in this nation higher than dog catcher, seems to think that trying to pick on science nerds will resonate with his ignorant constituents who probably are still harboring resentments about failing high school chemistry, and who have a vested interest in denying that anyone really needs that "egghead science stuff".

Religious people can insist all they want that religion and science are not at war, but it is clear that they often feel threatened by science, and perhaps, therefore, conclude that it would be safer to eliminate those pesky scientists altogether. Otherwise they risk having more embarrassing discoveries, like natural selection and radio-isotopic dating, which contradict articles of faith for bible literalists.

The $3.8 trillion dollar federal budget was held up by Republicans over the $75 million received by Planned Parenthood, of which only about $2 million (of their own private funds), was used to help low-income women get abortions. Now Coburn thinks that he might be able to save a whopping few more million dollars, if they consult him first about every one of the approximately 45,000 proposals that NSF receives annually. That way, if he thinks it sounds silly, like a shrimp on a treadmill, then he can put a stop to it, by God, and save tax payers some minor pocket change. Ever heard of the saying, "penny wise is pound foolish". New dictionaries may want to include a picture of Coburn next to this phrase.